When depressing the brake pedal, you expect your car to slow down, stop and then stay stopped until you lift your foot. But that apparently isn’t happening in some Nissan vehicles and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration initiated an investigation into the issue. [More]

The largest criminal antitrust investigation in the history of the Justice Department just got larger. It has nothing to do with telecommunications or giant mergers or any exotic items, though; it’s all about auto parts. A worldwide price-fixing and bid-rigging conspiracy related to those auto parts has resulted in 27 guilty pleas and over $2.3 billion in fines — and the investigation is still underway. [More]

When you go to a meeting to learn more about potentially joining a multi-level marketing organization, you expect to hear testimonials about how the product has changed lives. You should not expect to hear about how the company’s products have cured brain tumors and performed other impossible feats. At least, that’s what Herbalife says after undercover reporters from ABC News filmed Herbalife distributors doing just that. [More]

Is Attorney General Eric Holder all talk and no action? For the second time this year Holder has made it clear that the Justice Department does not believe that any corporation or executive is too big to jail. But an abundance of fines and a lack of actual prosecutions is enough to make one wonder if the declarations are just for show. [More]

If you’re like most people, you work hard to avoid clicking on the creepy “one weird trick” ads that advertise simple but amazing solutions to weight loss, car insurance, diabetes, small penises, and other modern woes. They wouldn’t be everywhere if they weren’t effective, but who is clicking? What happens when they do click? [More]

We might be experts on who the Worst Company in America is, but what about the worst charities in America? The Tampa Bay Times and the The Center for Investigative Reporting crunched on a bunch of data and figured out which American charities actually give the smallest proportion of their income out in cash aid. [More]

The lower prices that come from competition when drug patents expire and generic versions hit the market is great for consumers, but do you know what’s terrible for consumers? Drugs that don’t work. Yet there may be drugs on your shelf at home right now that haven’t been proven safe, effective, and––in the case of generics–– equivalent to the original brand-name drug. The alleged poor practices by six chemists at one research company in Texas affected more than one hundred drugs on the market in the United States and Europe. [More]

Ace consumer reporter Kurtis Ming in Sacramento, California has received a lot of complaints from readers about glasses from Stanton Optical, a growing national chain. Customers reported blurry lenses that caused poor vision and pain. One customer said that looking through them was like “looking through a glass of water.” Another claims that they’ve had Stanton remake their glasses fourteen times, and they’re still blurry. So what did the consumer advocates of CBS Sacramento do? They got eye exams and took their eyeballs undercover. [More]

The U.S Department of Justice has joined its counterparts in the European Union in looking into the pricing of e-books. A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed that the agency’s probe was concerned with the possible “anticompetitive practices involving e-book sales.” [More]

Living in abject poverty, $10,000 is a beguiling promise. All you have to do is give up one kidney. It’s ok, you have another one. But a Bloomberg Markets Magazine investigation shows how gangs around the world prey on the poor and use threats and violence to get them to give up their organs, which they can then resell for upwards of $150,000. This isn’t just happening in some ice-filled bath in China: this week, a Brooklyn man plead guilty to selling black market kidneys to people in New Jersey. [More]

Can you taste the tears in your McRib? The supplier of pork products to McDonald’s, Smithfield Farms, just got hit by a complaint filed with the SEC by animal rights group Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). Citing their own shocking undercover investigative video, HSUS allege that Smithfield is making false and misleading claims to shareholders and consumers about how well they treat their pigs and that those claims are in violation of federal securities law. [More]

In the second of a three-part series on “Buy Here Pay Here” dealerships, used car lots that target subprime borrowers with easy credit and triple the national average interest rates, the Los Angeles Times looks at how private equity firms have flocked towards the growing industry, lured by 38% margins. [More]

The Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs in Michigan has cited two nursing homes for violations after a survey found two elderly women in their care had maggots in their throat and pubic areas. Now a watchdog group is investigating. [More]

The Los Angeles Times has an excellent investigation into the national “Buy Here Pay Here” auto dealership phenomenon. These used car sellers purposefully target bad credit borrowers and offer them what no one else will: the chance to buy a car on credit. All they have to do is agree to 20-30% interest rates, a price well above the car’s Blue Book Value, and aggressive repo practices if they fail to pay up. But it’s not a big deal if they don’t. Borrower failure is baked into the business plan. [More]

Consumer Reports investigators bought 190 pieces of seafood from retailers and restaurants in the tri-state New York area and sent them out for DNA analysis. The results confirmed what other recent studies have shown: More than 20 percent of the fish bought were different species, incompletely labeled or mislabeled. For example: [More]